


Under the Mistletoe

by enemyfrigate



Series: Winter [2]
Category: RocknRolla (2008)
Genre: Christmas, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Future Fic, M/M, Mistletoe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-03
Updated: 2012-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:48:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enemyfrigate/pseuds/enemyfrigate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Wild Bunch celebrates Christmas, and Handsome Bob and One Two get a little bit closer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Mistletoe

Mumbles’ and Lilla’s house, Hackney, and the bitter cold is beaten back by the warm air and welcome that greets Bob, in the form of Mumbles, when he knocks.

“Happy Christmas, Handsome.” Mumbles claps Bob on the shoulder.

“And you, mate.”

Lilla sticks her head in from the dining room. “Come along in, darling. Get warm, hang up your gear. Drinks in the kitchen and the living room, food all over. Don‘t fill up - the roast should be done in a few.” Then she disappears and there’s the click of plates and glassware.

It’s Christmas night, and they’ve always gotten together Christmas night, first when they were kids and escaping one family holiday disaster after another, and then because, well, the Wild Bunch is family, and that’s where they want to be, them and their friends.

Handsome Bob shakes out of his leather jacket, drapes it over a hanger. He winds the soft green scarf One Two had gotten for him last week around the hook. He sticks the whole thing in the hall closet, and heads into the dining room.

 

“Darling,” Lilla says, and hugs him, harder than he thinks she should, because of the baby, but she’s tough. Before she was an artist and got respectable, she ran wild on the streets, just like Bob and the boys. “Tell me about this date you went on.”

“Forgettable. And he supports Arsenal,” Bob says. Arsenal, for fuck’s sake.

“The cad.”

“Cut that out,” Bob says. “Things like that are important.”

“I suppose you’ll have to stop going out with North London boys. Anyroad, I’m sure One Two will be relieved,” Lilla says. “You are such a sweet couple, you two.”

“That’s it. I don’t have to listen to this.” Bob backs away.

“If you’re not going to stick around to be my target, be a darling and check the hall window upstairs, will you? Mumbles keeps fixing it but it still rattles.”

“I would have sorted out the window without the mockery,” Bob says.

“I know,” Lilla says, and laughs.

Bob flees upstairs. He’s good at strategic retreats.

 

Mumbles, everyone agrees, is the smart one of the Wild Bunch. Chief strategist, sounding board, general know it all. He could have redesigned this entire house on one bored evening, if it suited him, down to new and innovative heating and electric - but he is incapable of keeping a window from rattling or a faucet from dripping.

That’s what Bob is for, the practical fixes. This one takes him about five minutes, and a few of those are spent undoing Mumbles’ hamfisted attempts.

Bob steps back from his handiwork, looks it over, sees that it’s good. He registers the front door opening again, and voices, and heads for the stairs. Before he can descend even one step a football sails towards him from below. He catches it reflexively.

“Am I in the goal?”

Cookie comes into view at the bottom of the steps, with twins in tow. “Fuck, say sorry boys. We can’t call him Handsome Bob if you take off his head.”

“Sorry,” one of them says - Bob can’t always tell Cookie’s twins apart - and Bob lobs the football back at them. He’ll just take the back way. Easier than getting in the middle of the match down there. He doesn’t want to get told off by Lilla for playing ball in the house.

The back stairs come out in a narrow back hallway that’s not really big enough for two people to pass. Bob stops short at the bottom of the steps when he hears someone coming. Something brushes his head, and Bob wonders who hung mistletoe here, of all places.

“There you are,” One Two says, like they hadn’t seen each other for Christmas lunch at Bob‘s mum‘s house earlier.

“Here I am,” Bob says.

One Two looks up. “Mistletoe.”

“Mistletoe,” Bob says. He takes One Two by the shoulders. One Two does nothing to stop him.

From his vantage point on the last step, Bob is just about the same height as One Two. Their mouths meet easily.

What might have been a bit of a laugh, or platonic affection, becomes something solid when One Two eases closer, tilts his head, drops his hands to Bob’s sides. For a moment they are touching, body to body, and Bob can feel the soft weight of One Two’s cock against his thigh.

Handsome Bob eases off, just until he can speak. “Happy Christmas.”

One Two grips the back of Bob’s neck, tilts their foreheads together. “Happy Christmas.”

They can’t stand like that forever. Bob wants to. He thinks he might know what’s happening here, but he’s not certain, and he’d rather be frozen in time than have to face the big question mark tomorrow.

He shivers.

One Two rubs Bob’s arm with his free hand. “You warm enough, Bobby?”

“’m fine.” Handsome Bob shifts his weight back, but One Two’s hand on his arm stops him, and then One Two pulls him close, until he’s breathing softly against Bob‘s cheek.

Bob wraps his arms proper around One Two and relaxes into him.

They only move apart at Mumbles’ shout: “Dinner, boys and girls. Get it while it’s hot.”

 

After dinner, with coffee to hand, the gang gathers in the big front room with the fireplace to hand out gifts.

Mumbles tosses a small, flat box to One Two.

One Two catches the box. “This better not be jewelry, boys.”

“Just open it,” Mumbles says.

The tag on the box says, From: Mumbles and Bob

In the little box: a key, and a picture of the newest Range Rover, the one in all the pictures from the autumn auto shows.

One Two takes the key out and shoves the picture under the lamp, like he wants to make sure of what he’s looking at.

“It’s the new one,” One Two says, clutching the paper so that it crumples.

“Not even on the market yet,” Bob says, storing One Two‘s gobsmacked expression for future enjoyment. “Ex. Clus. Ive. I’m telling you.”

“Everyone open your presents,” One Two says. “I want to go play with my new motor.”

“Right. You lot, take your time,” Fred says.

“Here, pass that around so we all can see,” Lilla says, holding out a hand for the picture.

“It’s not going anywhere, mate.” Bob says. “Locked up nice and safe at my place.”

In the end, Lilla puts her foot down and won’t let One Two leave early to play with his new toy. Mumbles breaks out a bottle from the case of rare whisky Bob just gave him. Bob and Fred play slightly drunken footie with the twins in the back garden.

Eventually Mumbles calls everyone a cab and pours them out the door.

Lilla confiscates the key to One Two’s new Rover, though Bob never sees her get it away from him. One minute One Two’s got a drink in one hand and the key in the other, and the next he’s fumbling his coat on and Lilla is telling him he can have the key back next day.

“I don’t trust you not to take her for a spin,” she says.

In the general flurry of everyone leaving all at once, Bob doesn’t get a chance to say any kind of private goodbye to One Two, but that’s alright. He’ll see him tomorrow.

Bob gives the cab driver too much money - it’s Christmas - and walks slowly up the stairs to his flat.

He’s happy. It’s not a dancing around kind of happy. Not like getting away with a job, or hitting big with the ponies, just an overall kind of warm feeling. Today was a really good day, and he’s pretty sure tomorrow will be a pretty good day, too. That kind of happy.

Bob strips off and pulls on track pants and a tee shirt. He’d rather sleep nude but it’s a bit cold for that in the winter, not if he wants his heating bill to be reasonable, at any rate. He brushes his teeth, locks up, sets his mobile to charge.

Bob falls asleep with his fingers over his lips, remembering mistletoe.


End file.
